Brooms
by chespin
Summary: Kaldur learns about his father. Artemis offers to kick faces. – gen fic, slight Kaldur/Artemis.


Disclaimer: don't own _Young Justice_.  
>Notes: I'm assuming that there <em>is<em> a cliff overlooking the ocean near the cave. There probably is one. I couldn't be bothered to check. But if there's not - creative license. :D  
>Background Notes: Couple of months into the future. The team (sans Robin) doesn't know about Artemis's family. Hope you enjoy. C:<p>

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><p><strong>Brooms<strong>

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><p>She sits beside him on the cliff side, stretching out her legs so they dangle in the open air. The glaring light makes her hair unbearable to look at so he stares out at the ocean, watching the dancing waves and the tremors beneath the surface. He misses it, misses <em>home<em>, an ache that he doubts will ever leave, but Kaldur knows his place. Subordinate. Soldier. Son.

(_son of a murderer, son of _that_ man, _son_ – he will never rise above that, never_)

"It sucks, doesn't it?"

He has always found Artemis's voice to be raspy, harsh, as though she doesn't remember _how_ to soften syllables. In the desert (and how he _hated_ that desert, hates it still in his dreams) she had comforted him, told him everything would be fine, but even her fingers had been calloused against his feverish skin.

(Calloused, rough and scraping, but nice, cool, and so, so unlike Tula's that for a second – Kaldur had forgotten.)

For a second. Little more than a heartbeat. Kaldur puts his fingers together loosely in his lap, aligning the tips. His fingers are smooth, he thinks; water is his friend, most days, and as he watches the ocean, tendrils of water rise up when they hit the rocks below, as if they're reaching for him – _brother_. He is the ocean's son. Among others'. "Yes," he says. "It does suck."

Artemis laughs, and something shines in the corner of his eye: her hair, brushing against the ground. She does not laugh like the women of Atlantis: Artemis laughs with her head thrown back, her throat bare, and he thinks it – odd, how she does this, but keeps everything else held tight, sewn together. Paper hearts, he thinks, remembering his father and the time he had shown Kaldur a string of lined paper stitched together to make a necklace of hearts.

_My first Valentine,_ his father had said with a fond smile. _It's very fragile – try not to let it dangle for long._

─Ah. Well. Not his father. Not his real one.

She leans back, shifting out of his view. Beneath them, gulls cry and the waves bicker with the rocks. This could be a date (like the one he had planned for Tula – and, ow, he shouldn't think of that, not today). Except – of course – this is Artemis, and Artemis likes to speak her mind.

So Kaldur lets her talk. And rant. She does it far better than he could.

"I mean, there's nothing wrong with you being your dad's kid. Trust me." And she sounds so sure of herself that Kaldur finds himself nodding. "The team will – they'll come around. Or I'll kick their asses, but they'll come around. I promise."

He smiles, a bit. Violence is always the answer, with her; he doubts Artemis believes in much else. But – but, for all that she swears everyone will come to see past this (this being his blood, his essence), Kaldur… Kaldur isn't all that sure he _wants_ them to see him as him. They've already proven once before, and twice now, that all it will take is one misplaced word, one false step, before he's thrown away like the outsider he is.

(The thought of leaving – of joining Roy's crusade or going elsewhere is…tempting. He can taste the freedom on his tongue the way the ocean air mists around them. But he won't take it. Can't, really. Soldier's mentality.)

There's a scraping sound as she scoots closer, hunching a little so her head is peeking over the cliff. Artemis looks, and then she pulls back, cracking the knuckles on her left hand. "I used to hate heights," she tells him, frowning. "They sucked. Like – my…family would go out to this circus that used to come around, and they usually had rides and stuff too. I never went on the Ferris wheel. Never stayed for the acrobats, either," she adds as an afterthought. "Just thinking about them made me freak out."

"But you're fine now."

Her mouth tilts into a smile of sorts. She shrugs. "I guess. I mean – I never really noticed _when_ I stopped being afraid, only that one day I _wasn't_. I had to get a practice arrow from a tree and I couldn't jump for it, so I climbed. I didn't really think about it."

Kaldur hmms, and Artemis punches his shoulder. His smile grows wider. There is a story behind her rambling – or maybe there isn't, and she's rambling to ramble. He doesn't mind (he's getting rather used to the sound of her voice).

"_Anyway_," she says, crossing her arms, "I think, maybe, one day you'll wake up and you'll go through the day without…thinking about how he's your dad, or how you're his son."

"…So my father issues are comparable to your fear of heights?"

Artemis looks skyward, looks at him, and then she nods, grinning. "Yes. Exactly. Doesn't that make you feel better?"

He shakes his head, biting the inside of his cheek. "No," he says, turning his face away. Kaldur tries hard not to laugh. "I do not feel much better."

"I could always go back in there and kick their faces," she offers. This time, Kaldur can't help the snort. She sounds so _eager_ (and he knows that has to do with Wally and not him, but he lets himself pretend that she's eager for his sake. Not anyone else's).

"Violence," he says, peering out at the ocean to give himself _some_ composure, "is not an answer. In our civilian identities."

Artemis glances down at her clothes. "So if I change—"

"No."

"Damn." She – smirks. "And here I was looking for a reason to get naked."

Kaldur drops his head into his hands. He sighs, counts to ten (do not respond do not react teammate, teammate, teammate, you are not a hormonal boy you are a soldier come on now), and then makes a vague shooing motion at her. "I think the others are looking for you."

She snickers, but he hears her getting to her feet anyway. And – just as he thinks his face is starting to cool down – she puts feather light fingers on his shoulder, her pinky skimming against his skin. "It _will_ be fine," she says, and the ocean goes silent in his ears. "Just – trust me, okay? Your dad might be…whatever, but you're not. They'll see that. They have to."

Speaking might be a bit difficult right now (her voice, he registers in a far away part of his mind, _can_ be very soft. Her fingers, too, and for now, all thoughts of Tula have slipped away from him) so Kaldur nods into his hands, and he feels the slightest pressure from Artemis's fingers before she leaves, her steps echoing.

One breath. Then two. Kaldur breathes in with his nose, and he thinks.

His father is a villain. His biological father is a villain (and what does that make the man who raised him? The man who loves – loved? – his mother). Artemis is, for whatever reason, on his side (whatever 'side' that is). He should be suspicious – but mostly, Kaldur is confused and tired and wrestling with something that might be anger (he can't quite remember what 'anger' feels like) so he puts his arms around his legs and watches the ocean.

It wants little from him. It doesn't care for him. It's an entity, and he thinks he could sit here wondering, seeing, until his bones turn to dust.

He doesn't. Artemis drags him back to the cave before long. The others stare, fumble, and then say halting words that he knows will soon turn into apologies. Wally has a bruise on his jaw.

He stays in his room in the cave that night, the first time in months, but – he _does_ go to sleep a bit lighter than when he had woken up that morning to the news. Artemis says goodnight to him.

(She doesn't go home that night, either. Suspicious. Kaldur beats down the feeling – and the memories of her, her hair and her fingers and her voice. Teammate. Son. It doesn't bear thinking about.)


End file.
